Teiku
Reframing Ancestral Jewish Melodies
Teiku
REFRAMING ANCESTRAL JEWISH MELODIES
“It was a pleasure to broadcast Teiku from our studios here at Blue Lake Public Radio to the tens of thousands of listeners who tune in...such personal music...transmuted into something excitingly new and previously unheard, is the pinnacle of creative musical expression.”
The families of pianist Josh Harlow and drummer Jonathan Barahal Taylor each sing unique melodies at the Passover seder, artifacts of their ancestral villages in modern day Ukraine. Upon realizing this striking similarity in their family histories, Josh and Jonathan started exploring their ancestral melodies through the lens of Creative Music ("jazz"), reframing them as launching points for improvisation, and arranging them in a rich song cycle that is deeply personal yet universal in its beauty.
The excitement of improvisation lies in its uncertainty and its potential for infinite possibilities. Teiku (a Talmudic acronym which means “unanswered question”) refers to the collective feeling of discovery that improvising musicians know well: creating spontaneous and cohesive sonic environments that are felt viscerally but cannot be expressed with words.
Teiku is also archival in its scope, working to document and reframe unique family melodies from the larger Jewish community. Harlow and Taylor are joined in various formations by Jaribu Shahid, John Lindberg, Rafael Leafar, Peter Formanek, Aliya Ultan, and Will McEvoy to bring this concept to life.
“Teiku presents a whole different spin on Passover songs. Inventive and creative, the highly skilled quartet takes the familiar to a whole other realm.
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“Teiku’s performance calls to mind a Jewish “A Love Supreme”: Exceptional musicians playing beautiful, spiritual music that binds together jazz and Jewish culture. An audience member was moved to tears three times in just the first 15 minutes of the concert! ”
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“A stunning and meaningful project and performance! We must make our music personal.”